This patent document relates to systems, devices and techniques for data communications in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON).
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is a telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-speed data transfer to an existing Cable TV (CATV) system. DOCSIS is employed by cable television operators to provide data services such as Internet over the hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) infrastructure. Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) is an optical network architecture based on point to multipoint (P2MP) topology in which a single optical fiber and multiple passive optical splitters are used to provide services from a central office or headend to multiple customer premises. EPON uses a point to point (P2P) Emulation Sublayer to render the P2MP network to appear as a collection of P2P links to the higher protocol layers. A network Operations, Administration and Maintenance (OAM) mechanism is included in EPON to facilitate operations and management of EPON.
DPoE (DOCSIS Provisioning over EPON) uses EPON and a DOCSIS Mediation Layer (DML) solution to provide the translation between the EPON and the DOCSIS backoffice systems for provisioning of DOCSIS services. Details of this architecture, as well as expected roles and functionalities of specific network elements, e.g., a Demarcation device, a DPoE Bridge Optical Network Unit (B-ONU), the DPoE System, can be found in the DPoE-SP-ARCH standard, published by CableLabs.
Techniques are needed for controlling the operation of updating configuration of ONUs, without having to reboot the ONUs.